1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a heat dissipation technology, and more particularly to a cooling system for computer, a cooling apparatus and a cooling method.
2. Description of Related Arts
Electronic products are widely used for all aspects of production and life in the contemporary society. The system performance of electronic products and user's experience directly bear on the efficiency of social production and people's life quality. The computer occupies an important position in the electronic product. The electronic components of the computer produce heat at run time, wherein, the high-heat electronic component must be installed with a cooling apparatus in order to maintain its operation temperature within a permissible range, or the high operation temperature will lead the performance to reduce or even failure. The high-heat electronic component of the existing computer mainly includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) disposed on a mainboard, a GPU (graphic processing unit) disposed on a graphic card, a power electronic component disposed in a power supply and so on, here, the mainboard, the graphic card and the power supply are parts. Sometimes, the computer's hard disk and other parts also need cooling.
The electronic component or part of the existing computer generally uses a fan cooling apparatus to dissipate heat. The fan cooling apparatus mainly consists of a radiator disposed on the electronic component or part of the existing computer and a radiating fan disposed on the radiator. The radiator absorbs heat from the electronic component, the radiating fan causes an airflow, and the airflow passes the radiator and takes heat away from the radiator. Here, the radiating fan enhances the heat dissipating effect. Generally, except the power supply, each fan cooling apparatus releases heat into the computer casing. a fan disposed on the computer casing blows air outside in order to further release the heat within the computer casing to the exterior. For a general configuration computer, the heat is released out of the computer casing through a fan of the power supply which blows air outside.
The computer casing of the existing computer is mainly used to fix and protect the computer components, such as the mainboard, the power supply and the graphic card. The computer casing creates an electromagnetic shielding effect, and makes the computer look attractive. Basically, the computer casing has no effect to dissipate heat, because the computer will still work properly if all computer components are disposed on a flat board and connected with each other, and the heat dissipating effect is even better when there is no computer casing.
As we all know, the fan causes noise at run time, and more fans, more noise. For the existing computer, the high-heat electronic components, such as the CPU, the GPU and the power electronic component, generally use the fan as cooling apparatus, a large number of fans cause great noise at run time. Noise is harmful to human health and reduces work efficiency.
Therefore, while keeping heat dissipating effect, to minimize the noise of the cooling system has become an big problem for the computer industry. Because the low-speed large-diameter fan not only has a low-noise characteristic, but also meets the requirement of heat dissipation, so people have designed and produced a variety of fan cooling apparatus having a larger diameter for the CPU, the graphic card and the power supply. At present, the radiating fan for the power supply usually has diameter of 120 mm, or even 140 mm by some manufacturer; the radiating fan even having a special structure for the CPU also can reach 120 mm in diameter, but the most radiating fans for the CPU are about 80 mm or 90 mm in diameter; the radiating fan for the graphic card is usually less than 60 mm in diameter due to limited space; the radiating fan installed on the computer casing usually is 80 mm, 90 mm or 120 mm in diameter; usually, there are two fans with a diameter of 60 mm for the hard disk, the radiating fan blows to the surface of the hard disk to dissipate heat.
The large diameter and the low speed of the fan are capable of reducing noise, but the reduction degree of noise is very limited because large number of the radiating fans and the diameter of the radiating fan has different size. So the noise of the computer is still a problem for the computer industry.
In recent years, a HTPC (home theater personal computer) with remote control function has a trend to become a home entertainment center. Undoubtedly, the entertainment of the HTPC and the noise of the computer are incompatible. Till now, there is no noisy solution for HTPC. Therefore, the HTPC also has strong requirement for low-noise for the cooling system. Other electronic products with the high-heat electronic component, such as electronic game and so on, also have the problem to further reduce noise while meet the requirement of heat dissipation.